


now

by allgoodlions



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 17:56:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4634760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allgoodlions/pseuds/allgoodlions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla scares herself sometimes. What she’s just done. What she’s willing to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	now

**Author's Note:**

> If Laura had stayed with Carmilla in the few moments after season 2, episode 22, maybe things would be a little different. Maybe not.

“Take the locket, and crush what’s inside.”

The words are out of Carmilla’s mouth, and there’s no taking them back. She fixes her eyes on the edge of the trapdoor that blends so seamlessly with the dark hardwood. The old varnish is worn away at one corner, maybe scraped by a chair dragged carelessly across it. The pale, severe angle is stark and certain, and Carmilla stares and stares.

Mattie is down there. Mattie, her sister, whom she has known for centuries, whom she has loved and trusted all this time.

Mattie, her sister, whom she has betrayed.

And there’s Laura, lingering on the threshold. Carmilla doesn’t have to look up to know she’s there. The stillness that fills the room is not emptiness. It’s indecision, and it ties the air in the room into knots.

Carmilla feels, sometimes, that there’s a thread laced through her ribcage and looping back to Laura. There’s a tug beneath her breastbone when Laura moves, and it drags at Carmilla and she aches because of it. Right now, she feels that if she doesn’t go to Laura and hold her close, she might fall all to pieces, all tattered edges.

She can’t though.

She’s transfixed by this moment, weighed down by the heavy air of this room that is too close and too vast all at once. This moment, which changes everything and also nothing at all. Here, in this moment, in this room, in this awful life that feels too long and too short. Here’s the turning point, the corner, and the crossroads fading, all ash in the rearview.

This choice she’s made, but hardly a choice. Maybe, if she stays completely still, she can fix herself here, somehow hold back the seconds ticking by. But it’s like sand running through her fingers, leaving an emptiness that collapses in on itself, folding into the present: _now_.

Now, she’s made her choice. Now, she lives – or dies – with the consequences. Now.

The hardwood creaks as Laura shifts her weight, meaning to go upstairs, surely. Carmilla clenches her hands, adding a small, private tightness to the heavy room.

Now, she cries because there’s nobody to see.

Only, Laura’s footsteps aren’t receding. They’re coming back. Laura’s coming back to her.

To her seat, anyway. She sits again, gingerly, perched forward on the edge of her chair, as if she’s not quite sure of this choice. Then her hand enters Carmilla’s vision and rests gently over her clenched fists. A few tears slip from Carmilla’s cheeks and land on Laura’s hand – one on her knuckle, another on her wrist, and the room is so quiet that she hears them land: _pit pat._

“I’m afraid,” Carmilla says softly. And even though Laura is right here, it’s the loneliest Carmilla has ever felt.

She is terrified.

For Mattie sleeping beneath the floorboards, oddly vulnerable. _Of_ Mattie, who could break Laura in her hands like kindling. For Laura, who is so fragile. So breakable, she never knew…

And yes, of herself.

Carmilla scares herself sometimes. What she’s just done. What she’s willing to do.

She looks up then, pleading, and she needs something, some sort of—forgiveness. Absolution. _Something_ to pardon her of all the terrible things she would do if only it would keep Laura safe. _It was only ever for you_.

Only Laura. Laura, who is watching her with something that might be horror, but the harsh edges are softened by a puzzled tenderness. Laura, who leans forward at last, and kisses Carmilla’s forehead.

“We can be afraid together,” she murmurs.

And they are.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is, again, rough, because it's off the cuff and not edited into smooth excellence by my birb nerd editor.


End file.
